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He had no more lives left, and her heart broke at that revelation.
There would be no more poignant meetings on battlefields, no more powerful stares across the axis of death. The one mortal who ever saw her, called only for her, would be gone.
Persephone pulled herself together. She could mourn for her strange companion who had kept her company throughout time later in the privacy of her own room. There was no room for sadness in reaping.
Every moment of his most recent life ran through her. She felt every ounce of pain and joy. How he hunted and killed as a mercenary, the guilt catching up to him when he came back home. The things he saw when watching a potential target. Rape. Murder. Abuse. Things that made his soul sick and pushed him to nearly drink himself to death.
She felt the intense loathing and disdain he harbored for the world around him. Worse was the burning hatred he aimed at himself.
Now that he accepted his death, she felt his solace that the world was free of one less monster, and his regret that he hadn’t taken more with him.
Persephone felt the fear when he realized his death would not mean he could slip peacefully into the ether. The knowledge that there would be no peace for him. She wanted to scream and tear the world apart. This world that had been too cruel to him, the man who had stood before her for centuries.
Immersed in his soul, she felt its call stronger than ever. The call so compellingly warm with a deep sense of familiarity.
Now that she could explore the contours of his soul, Persephone recognized a bright core of power within him. It was free, she realized, with the death of its mortal shell. She wondered if this was how he was able to see her as a mortal throughout his lives. How he was able to call the Goddess of the Underworld as no mortal had before.
“Devon Aideonous, I am here to offer you immortal life.”
The words sprung from her mouth without thought and she realized the tickling trace of the Moirai’s magic had taken hold of her voice. Was this why the Moirai had sent her through the portal? A mortal turned immortal? The Moirai had known about this soul’s latent power and had laid this out well before his death. Persephone was just another one of their puppets, strung to do their bidding.
Oh, the irony, she thought, tightening her hand around the lifeline.
“A life where your power means never raising a weapon again. To make right when so much in the world is wrong. I am giving you a chance to correct the many injustices you have witnessed.” She made her hand into a fist before unfurling her fingers to reveal six small, red pomegranate seeds. “Eat these seeds and leave this place between worlds. You need not fear life nor death.”
It was a relief to Persephone in that moment to realize that he would not be leaving earth and returning to Chaos. No, he would be bound to the Underworld by the will of the Moirai working through her.
As the man before her–Devon–stared at the seeds in her palm, his soul’s glow started to lose its color. He was being pulled to the Underworld without a coin or Reaper. She did not want him lost to Styx, wandering the shore of the river for a hundred years. She gave a push of mental persuasion. Just a small one, and even then, she wondered if that was something she should do.
He took a huge breath and gazed back at his body, what was left of him, before looking down at the floor. Finally, after the string was almost completely lost to the ether itself, he stepped forward nearly toe to toe with her. Not an ounce of fear showed in his beautiful green eyes.
Confusion and anger, but not fear.
Persephone was unsettled by the directness of his gaze. Her eye contact with mortal souls was reserved for exercises of her power. The dead rarely met their queen’s stare of their own volition.
Keeping his eyes firmly on hers, he took the seeds, placed them in his mouth, and bit down.
In the next moment, his soul was gone. The room was silent aside from the first-aid
book’s pages fluttering lightly in the sudden vacuum.
Persephone released her breath, knowing she had bound the soul to her in the Underworld.
Not as a man, but as something more.
Chapter 3
A groan slipped through Devon’s lips as he woke up, unaware of even having fallen asleep. Blinking, he realized he was not in his bed or even the motel room he had previously used as a base of operations.
Confused and his mind hazy on the previous day’s details, he attempted to push himself up into a sitting position, only to find his arms as weak as a newborn colt. He fell back against a wooden bench seat, barely moving his head in time so he did not slam his temple against it.
Wood? His mind scattered, unable to hold a train of thought for any decent length of time. A strong sulfuric smell burned his nostrils as he tried to steady his breathing.
Focusing his eyes, he found he was lying on wood, surrounded by darkness. The wind whistled in the unending shadow around him, blowing through what sounded like a cavern. He felt a chill, the temperature lower than he remembered it being before he had passed out. His body rocked gently as he heard water lapping at the wood beside him.
He was on a boat, he realized. He couldn’t remember getting drunk last night, and he knew he never did that while on a job.
Sometimes, after particularly heinous jobs, he felt like he needed the alcohol to numb the pain. Though he could not remember doing the job at all, much less finishing it. A black hole sat in his memories and not one clue as to how he ended up passed out on a boat in a dark cave.
